Chapter 19
"So, Hack, what have you and Hilary been up to?"
Tristan's question, accompanied by a lascivious grin, intensified Stu's guilt, prompting him to snatch his beer off their pub table—only to recall he was the designated driver. His one beer needed to last all evening.
Tristan's grin intensified as he waited for an answer. Stu glanced at Jeremiah, who seemed more interested in Stu's reticence.
"Well, we've been keeping busy, doing research." Stu winced since his answer suggested that they were still after Coenen, which he wasn't supposed to admit. Instead of catching Stu's gaffe, Tristan clapped him on the shoulder.
"Atta boy," he praised the team's computer guru in a loud voice. "I knew you'd hit it off with her. Glad you're keeping busy."
Stu's ears heated at the implication that he and Hilary were busy in bed. Luckily, the dim lighting of the crowded Irish pub concealed his embarrassment, except to Jeremiah who saw what everyone else missed.
Tristan smothered a burp. "Did she talk to the task force guy yet? Isaac Calhoun—I knew I recognized the name." Tristan included Jeremiah in the conversation. "'Cept we called him Ike. Dude was my squad leader the first time I played in the Sandbox. Toughest SOB I've ever met." He turned back to Stu. "Has Juliet called him yet?"
Considering Tristan had warned them only moments earlier not to mention Juliet's name in his presence, the question caught Stu off-guard.
"Yeah." Stu pretended fascination with the bubbles in his beer. He nodded. "She met with him at the NCTC today."
"And?"
Stu swallowed hard. Withholding information from a teammate went against every tenet drilled into him by the instructors at BUDs. "They decided that Renata Blumenthal is really Bergit Coenen, Hans's sister."
"What?" Tristan nearly elbowed his mug right off their small table as he leaned closer to Stu. "Holy shit, are you kidding me?"
Stu shook his head. Tristan rarely cursed except when he was drunk, and Stu had counted five swear words already. Keeping the rest of what he knew to himself, he watched Tristan fold his arms across his chest and brood over the latest development. The Golden Boy's broad shoulders slumped.
"I don't know what that woman said to her," Tristan groused. "One minute everything was fine between us. Juliet gets a phone call from Renata and, next thing I know, she's telling me she's folding her investigation and flying back to Virginia without me."
Watching the animation fade from Tristan's face, Stu realized his buddy's boisterousness up to that point had been a façade, the same way Juliet's surliness concealed her hurting heart.
Blinking furiously, Tristan picked up his mug and drained the contents.
Stu and Jeremiah shared an unspoken thought over the tabletop. They would do whatever was required to get their friend through the evening. Stu theorized that would first entail talking Tristan off a ledge. Once they managed to hustle their rip-roaringly drunk friend out of this establishment, they would have to find him somewhere safe to sleep. It would probably be closer to dawn than to midnight by the time he set foot in Hilary's apartment. Damn it.
An alternate plan occurred to Stu. Regret skewered his heart because he had given Hilary his word not to say anything. A man's word was his bond. Once broken, that bond could never be mended.
In effect, she had given him an ultimatum: Choose him or choose his teammate. In Stu's mind it was one thing or the other. There were no shades of gray, no loopholes, no shortcuts.
He and Tristan, Jeremiah and all of his other brothers in Echo Platoon were fully committed to each other's well-being. Tristan was miserable. Knowing he could alleviate Tristan's pain by sharing a few vital pieces of information obviated Stu's quandary. Loyalty dissolved the guilt clogging his throat. Ignoring his disappointment over the loss of a relationship with Hilary, Stu accepted what he had to do—break a promise.
"Tristan," he started quietly.
His friend's empty mug struck the table top as he lowered it and searched Stu's face through bleary eyes. "What?"
"I know what happened at the aquarium."
"What d'you mean?" Tristan's words ran together.
"You weren't the only ones there. Hans Coenen was there, along with Irena Kapova. He spoke to Juliet while you weren't looking. He threatened her."
The lenses of inebriation seemed to drop from Tristan's eyes. He looked suddenly, starkly, sober. "What the fuck?"
"Kapova was standing right behind you holding a stiletto. Coenen told Juliet his girlfriend would slit your throat, or hunt you down and shoot you, if she didn't leave the past alone."
Tristan's mouth fell open. His eyes were on Stu, but he was visibly filling in memories with the details he'd just received. "Why the hell didn't she tell me that?" His irate question drew looks from the other tables.
Jeremiah put a restraining hand on Tristan's shoulder. "It's obvious, bro. She was trying to protect you."
"From a ballet dancer?" Tristan's incredulous query carried over the general din.
Stu leaned toward him and stated quietly, "According to Coenen, Kapova used to be KGB."
Tristan rolled his eyes. "Give me a break. I can't believe Juliet withheld this from me. What the fuck?" he repeated, visibly irate.
"They were probably still watching her," Jeremiah suggested.
Tristan didn't hear him. "She made up some bullshit excuse about how Goebel was dead so there was no point of holding his minions accountable. And then she kicked me to the curb."
Jeremiah sat forward to reason with him. "Listen, Tristan. You need to look at this from Juliet's perspective. Coenen showed up where he was least expected. He threatened your life if Juliet didn't back off. What would you have done, if your roles were reversed?"
Tristan's eyebrows met over his nose as he pondered the question. Several beats of silence followed. "I would have protected Juliet," he admitted. His frown abruptly cleared.
"Right. And if protecting Juliet translated into staying away from her, you'd have pushed her away for her own good." Jeremiah sat back, clasped his hands on the tabletop, and closed his eyes. Stu and Tristan, who were used to him slipping into semi-meditative states at random times, ignored him.
"Jesus." Tristan clapped a hand to his forehead. "How could I have missed Coenen? How did I not see him? And Kapova standing right next to me, without me noticing?"
"Stingrays," Stu explained with a magnanimous shrug.
A sudden thought had Tristan cursing under his breath. "Coenen knows Juliet's address," he told his teammates.
Jeremiah lurched in his seat, his eyes flying open. "We need to check on Juliet," he said, reaching for his cell phone. "I'll have Emma call her."
Tristan shot him a wary look. "Why?" he demanded, and then his eyes widened. "Wait, was that an intuitive hit?"
Jeremiah's gift for reading the intentions of foes and friends alike was an enhanced form of intuition. Stu didn't begin to understand it, but Jeremiah's insight had saved Echo Platoon from loss of life on multiple occasions. And ever since their cruise-ship vacation had gone awry the year before, Tristan put great stock in Jeremiah's premonitions and had told the whole Team they should be do the same.
"We should check on her," Jeremiah answered as he thumbed a message to his wife.
"Hell with that." Tristan reached for his wallet. "We'll check on her in person."
Stu glanced regretfully at his full mug of beer.
"That works." Jeremiah put his phone away, lending urgency to Tristan's decision.
As Tristan tossed two twenties on the table, Stu considered what he'd just forfeited by choosing his teammate over Hilary. Considering her generous disposition, she might forgive him for breaking his promise, but he would refuse her forgiveness. He had chosen Tristan over her, and knowing himself, he would always choose the Team over any woman. Certainly Hilary deserved better than that.
He had broken the Unbreakable Vow, and he would reap the consequences.
* * *
"Sit." Renata made it sound like an invitation—as if it were her house. She waved her deadly Glock to signify that Juliet should park herself on the sofa.
Juliet didn't want to sit. She wanted to dive for her purse and retrieve her Ruger to even the odds a bit. Unfortunately, her purse was perched on the breakfast bar in her kitchen—about three steps too far to keep from taking a bullet in the back. The fact that Renata carried a silenced pistol, albeit a small one, easy to conceal, could mean only one thing—she was planning to use it and didn't want anyone hearing the shot.
Panic threatened Juliet's control. Well, of course Renata was going to use her gun. The woman hadn't chased Juliet all the way from the West Coast to converse about her lover's art.
"Would you like a drink?" Juliet offered, praying for an excuse to head to the kitchen.
"Thank you, no. Sit," the woman repeated.
Renata's aim, centered over Juliet's heart, motivated her to drop swiftly onto the sofa.
"For you, dear." Renata's smile was a parody of graciousness as she offered Juliet the wrapped package. "I thought you might like to see one of Peter's best paintings. You'll recognize the subject, I'm sure. Unwrap it," she ordered coldly.
Masking tape held the brown paper securely in place. Juliet proceeded to remove it while weighing her odds of tackling Renata without getting shot. The woman had planted herself on the other side of the coffee table, just beyond grabbing distance. The safety on her 22-caliber was already off, her index finger curled in readiness around the trigger. One false move on Juliet's part and Renata—Bergit—would finish her. There was no more doubt that the two women were one and the same.
Conscious of the tremor in her fingers, Juliet drew a measured breath. Since Bergit wished to witness her reaction to the artwork, Juliet would take her time while seeking a way out of this predicament.
"Did your brother send you here?" she asked by way of distraction.
"My brother?" The question clearly startled Bergit, though she was swift to summon a mocking smile. "Oh, did you just figure that out? I wondered when you would make the connection. Actually, Hans ordered me to stay away from you. He wants to let bygones be bygones." Bergit waved a hand in the air to signify how insignificant his wishes were. "Hans had a thing for Anya—always did," she added, on a note of disgust. "Can't you do that any faster?"
Juliet pulled the tape from the wrapping to keep Bergit from snapping at her again, yet still slowly enough to buy more time. In light of the woman's statement, it occurred to Juliet that Coenen might have been sincere in his warning. What if he hadn't been trying to scare Juliet so much as trying to protect her from his sister? Was that why he had thrown her cell phone off the patio—so Bergit would have difficulty finding her again?
"Your brother killed my parents," Juliet protested. "I saw him after the accident. He looked into the car to make sure they were dead."
"You think that accident was his doing?" Bergit crowed with laughter. "Please." Her laughter abated suddenly. "I'm the one who punished Anya for her betrayal. Hans begged to look into the car to make sure Anya wasn't suffering. Such a weak stomach he has." Her lips curled with disdain. "Peter used him strictly to recruit young people. My brother has a gift for that," she relented. "Anya was no impressionable idealist, and yet Hans persuaded her to advance Dieter's vision, at least for a while."
Juliet took note of the woman's reversion to Dieter Goebel's original name. "Is that what you've been doing with the mural center—advancing Dieter's vision?"
"Of course. America's youth despise the corruption born out of capitalism. They will rise up in protest and herald a new era."
"Did Hans recruit them the way he did my mother?" Juliet already knew the answer. In hindsight, Hans seemed almost noble compared to his sister, who was holding Juliet at gunpoint, forcing her to play this awful game.
"Some he recruited. Others he sent my way through the penal system."
The brown paper slipped abruptly to the floor exposing a portrait of a pretty blonde. Vaguely impressionistic and not the best likeness, there was still no mistaking the subject for anyone but Juliet's mother. Herein lay the motivation for Bergit's revenge, Juliet guessed.
"Dieter painted that one year before his death." Bergit's voice shook with disdain and jealousy so palpable that Juliet lifted wary eyes at her.
"Do you know what it felt like, knowing he was still obsessed with her after all these years?" Bergit's voice roughened with loathing. "I was loyal to him from the day we met. Anya betrayed him. I found a way to empower Dieter, to lift him out of the ashes of the Cold War. What did Anya do? She married herself to the West. I loved that man for decades and tended him in sickness. Did he paint a portrait of me at the end of his life?"
Her face grew taut with rage. "No." A muscle ticked in her still-smooth check. "He painted Anya, the bitch who brought about his downfall. Why? Because he loved her still, that's why—in spite of everything. He loved her best, not me!"
Bergit's breath came in harsh pants that mirrored the wild beat of Juliet's pounding heart.
"At least she warned you first." Sensing the end was near, Juliet defended her mother.
Bergit's eyes flashed with outrage. "There is nothing you can say that will redeem your mother," she spat, raising the snout of the silenced gun to aim it at Juliet's head. "You act just like her."
"Is love no excuse?" Juliet demanded, desperate to keep the woman talking. "Love will make you do anything. My mother did what she did for my father. Look at you. You built your life around the man you loved." Her own thoughts went to Tristan, who—if Bergit had her way—would never know that Juliet wanted to build her life around him if she could only find the courage.
"No more talking." Bergit reached for the portrait, wrenched it from Juliet's grasp, and propped it on the recliner opposite the sofa.
With her heart racing, Juliet waited to see what the woman would do next. Bergit backed several steps from the portrait, raised her pistol, and fired it at Anya's likeness.
Juliet screamed involuntarily. "No!"
The gaping hole between the painted image of her mother's eyes suggested the bullet would have drilled straight through Anya's brain to blow out the other side had she been a living presence.
Bergit rounded on Juliet, who felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She was next. To her surprise, Bergit thumbed the safety on the Glock and laid it carefully on the arm of the recliner.
Cautious hope beat back Juliet's shock. What was this? The answer came swiftly as, without warning, Bergit hurdled the coffee table, sending Juliet's can of soda flying, as she attacked with her bare hands.
Stunned by the woman's brute strength, Juliet found herself pinned against the back of the couch, Bergit's hands encircling her neck. The strength in the woman's fingers brought to mind the ferocity of her handshake the day they'd first met. Juliet counterattacked, gouging her opponent's eyes. Within seconds, she thought she had secured her freedom, only to suffer a stinging blow to her cheek as she tried to slip under the woman's arm.
Springing up, Bergit seized Juliet by the hair, dragged her off the couch, and threw her face-down across the coffee table. The audible crack of a rib as it struck the table's edge preceded an explosion of pain in Juliet's right side. Ignoring it, she tried to scramble up.
Bergit grabbed her hair again. Yanking Juliet's head up and back, the crazed ex-spy seized her throat and applied a crushing grip to the delicate cartilage of her windpipe.
Juliet attempted to mule kick her attacker, but the jarring movement engendered so much agony in her ribs that the effort proved feeble. She seized the older woman's hands and tried to peel Bergit's powerful fingers from her larynx. Spots swam before her eyes. How could this be happening? How could a woman twice her age have beaten her so quickly? Bergit must have spent a lifetime honing her deadly skills.
The pulse hammering in Juliet's eardrums nearly disguised the knock at her door. Bergit froze, her grip slackening just enough that Juliet could sip in a life-saving breath.
"Juliet!"
Tristan! His voice, so beautiful, so dear, confirmed her greatest hope and imparted a burst of strength to her oxygen-deprived muscles. Grinding her teeth against the pain, Juliet wrenched from Bergit's hold and managed to gain her freedom. She lunged for the woman's Glock, scrambling over the coffee table to reach it. Before she could reach it, Bergit seized the back of Juliet's blouse, jerking her backward. Then, with unerring accuracy, Bergit kneed Juliet hard in the ribs she'd just broken.
With a cry of agony, Juliet collapsed inward. Bergit flung her down again. Finding herself splayed across the carpet, Juliet tried to voice a warning. "Tristan!" But his name emerged as scarcely more than a whisper.
Retrieving her weapon, Bergit swung around and flipped the safety off as she aimed it at Juliet. "Not the way I wanted to kill you," she admitted, breathing heavily from her exertions, "but it will do."
* * *
"It's not working," Tristan snarled. The code he'd used the previous week resulted in nothing but a flashing red light.
Given the sounds coming from Juliet's apartment, the visions Jeremiah claimed he was picking up on their way from the pub were probably accurate. The intuitive SEAL had envisioned a stranger in his sister-in-law in her apartment—someone whose intentions were foul. From the other side of the door, came a chilling scream. "No!"
Picturing Coenen as he throttled Juliet, Tristan slammed his hand against the door in frustration and fear. "Juliet changed the code," he raged. Of course she would have, knowing Coenen had her address.
Jeremiah ran a hand over the solid steel surface. "We can't kick this in," he said. "The hinges are reinforced."
"We can shoot them," Stu offered, brandishing the high-tech pistol he'd pulled from his trunk.
Sweat breached Tristan's pores. "Good idea. Do it."
"Wait." Jeremiah stared at the keypad. "The last combination was Emma's birthday, 0106. Try Sammy's, May fifth—0505," he translated quickly.
Tristan punched in the numbers, and a green light flashed. "That's it!" Signaling for Stu to cover him, he lowered the lever carefully, opening the door just far enough to peer inside.
A vision of Renata Blumenthal's pale bun drew Tristan up short. He'd expected to see Coenen, not his sister, terrorizing Juliet. She clutched a small silenced pistol in one hand, aiming it at something just beyond Tristan's view. Long legs stretching out from behind the recliner confirmed the worst. Juliet!
In a split second, even without consciously thinking of his plan, Tristan threw his weight into the door, relying on Hack to cover him as he exploded into the room, first at a run, then into a diving roll.
Renata's head swung around.
On her face, he read the same expression of fanatical resolve he'd seen from terrorists about to be apprehended. Her silenced weapon discharged. Thoop. Juliet's legs jerked at the bullet's impact, but it was the lack of a scream that chilled his blood while making it boil at the same time.
"Nooo!" Tristan's roar of denial sounded like the cry of a wounded animal. He tackled Renata—hard. Tangled together, they flew over the coffee table and onto the sofa where he wrested the weapon from her grasp and flipped the safety. It was all he could do not to knock her teeth out with it, but concern for Juliet had him tossing the pistol to Jeremiah and leaving Renata to Hack.
"Juliet!" Tristan fell to his knees next to her. Blood smeared the left side of her head, flowing from her temple and pooling before his eyes on the area rug beneath her. "Oh, God. No. No. No. Please. Wake up. Wake up!"
Except she wouldn't. Renata had shot her at point-blank range in the head. Juliet was dying or already dead. What an idiot he'd been to ever let her out of his sight! How the hell could he ever forgive himself?